Case Study — Teritori App: Redefining the Urban Housing Search Experience
How a user-centered research approach transforms fragmented property searches into a seamless mobile experience.
Role
End-to-End UX Researcher & UI Designer
Timeline
August 2021
Tools
FigJam, Figma, Instagram, Google Meet
Cover — swap with hero screen
Overview
Finding the right place to live in a new city is a stressful, fragmented process. Teritori App is a mobile solution designed to help urban migrators discover housing that perfectly matches their unique lifestyle, daily activities, and personal needs.
The Challenge
Urban migration is at an all-time high—people move for career advancement, higher education, or starting new families. However, the current journey of finding a place to live is broken. Migrators often struggle to find housing that not only fits their budget but also strategically supports their daily mobility and lifestyle constraints.
The Goal
Build an intuitive mobile application that bridges the gap between property listings and personalized user constraints.
User Discovery & Research
To avoid designing based on assumptions, I initiated a two-tier research approach using quantitative screening and qualitative deep dives.
Quantitative Screening
Conducted an online survey via Instagram, capturing insights from 23 initial respondents.
Qualitative Deep Dives
Selected 5 targeted users from the survey pool to conduct in-depth interviews via Google Meet to extract thorough behavioral insights and friction points.
Key Research Objectives
- Understand the criteria for an “ideal” living space.
- Map the step-by-step user journey and existing friction points in current property search apps.
- Identify the most heavily utilized features and structural flaws in existing market solutions.
Data Synthesis & Strategy
To transform raw interview data into actionable product features, I leveraged several framework synthesis tools.
Affinity Mapping
Grouped raw user quotes into three distinct strategic pillars: User Motivation, User Behavior, and User Opinions.
User Personas
Developed 3 distinct user personas. Each persona represented a unique demographic cohort with vastly different primary housing requirements (e.g., students prioritizing proximity vs. young professionals prioritizing facilities).
Core Discovery — Top Findings (swap in your affinity map / sticky notes photo here)
Users don't just care about price; they care about the surrounding ecosystem (commute time, safety, nearby grocery lines). Existing platforms fail to display localized, contextual information efficiently.
Information Architecture & User Flow
Transitioning from insights to structure, I mapped out the application's skeletal layout.
Sitemap (Information Architecture)
Formulated based on a competitive analysis and content auditing to ensure the navigation hierarchy felt native and reduced cognitive load.
User Flow
Designed a streamlined user flow focusing on the path of least resistance— allowing a user to filter, discover, and save a property in under 4 steps.
Sitemap
User Flow diagram
Visual Execution
Design System
Established a cohesive and scalable design system in Figma, ensuring atomic typography rules, accessible color contrasts, and reusable UI components for future development scaling.
High-Fidelity Design
Executed the final high-fidelity screens, turning complex property data points into clean, digestible visual cards with clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs).
Home / discovery screen
Property detail card
Saved listings screen
Retrospective & Product Lessons
As my first deep-dive into the property tech ecosystem, this project provided invaluable foundational product experience:
User-Centric Prioritization
I learned that data synthesis (like Affinity Mapping) is critical to separate "nice-to-have" features from "must-have" solutions.
Future Roadmap Execution
If scaled further, the immediate next milestone for Teritori App would be running formal Usability Testing (UT) sessions on the high-fidelity prototype to quantitatively measure task completion rates and iterate on the filtering system.